February - beginnings and endings

Feb 11

"the reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time people came to the end of it they would die if they had to stand one more blasted day." Katherine Paterson

We are now mid February - the month that I possibly find the most stressful of the year, hence my choice of quote as header, although that quote is from the Northern hemisphere and so is probably moaning about snow and ice and freezing temperatures. My stress comes from the fact that February is sometimes the hottest month of the year, and comes after a dry period of heat, and is therefore the month in which bush fires are a pretty constant threat. It's hot today around 30 degrees, but also not very threatening.

There are other reasons for stress however or at least I have been enduring minor stress levels at the moment, which are related to the fact that it is February and fundamentally it comes down to book groups and stoned fruit. But let's step back a bit and just consider February.

I was actually intrigued by the name. What does it come from? Well Latin of course:

"ultimately from Latin februarius mensis "month of purification," from februare "to purify, ... The last month of the ancient (pre-450 B.C.E.) Roman calendar, so named in reference to the Roman feast of purification, held on the ides of the month." Etymonline

So not from the name of a god or anything like that. Etymonline went on to say that it was associated with smoke and therefore probably purification by smoke. Which is possibly relevant to February in Australia - bushfires, barbecues. If you subscribe to the notion that fire purifies - which to my mind it very definitely does not. Still, a curiously appropriate name for the month in Australia.

Purification seems to be a notion that has been adopted by world-wide foodies for January however - with Dry January and Veganuary - two different kinds of purification

Over in England:

"The Old English name for it was solmonað, which is said to mean "mud month." English first borrowed the Roman name from Old French Feverier, which yielded Middle English Feverer, Feoverel, etc. (c. 1200) before the 14c. respelling to conform to Latin." Etymonline

I'm guessing the old French came from the Latin.

"In February there is everything to hope for and nothing to regret." said Patience Strong, which like my opening quote can be equally applied to both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. In the north they are looking forward to spring, and then summer, and the end of the cold, here we are looking forward to rain - it would be great if we had a 'mud month' in February. Well perhaps not mud because that means you've had a lot of rain, and indeed what I am saying about the weather here, does not apply to the rest of Australia. In the far north there is terrible flooding - the banana crop is destroyed - as are people's lives and homes. So yes 'mud month' it is up there.

Beginnings and endings. Well beginnings is a word that is not particularly relevant over there in the 'western' world but here in the east and the south beginnings are particularly appropriate.

In Asia it's the Lunar New Year - year of the snake this year - and admittedly the Lunar New Year does sometimes fall in January, but this year it's February. So a whole new beginning for Asia - in many more ways than our New Year I think, because of the importance of the year in which you are born. It shapes your entire life, if you believe in these things.

Here in Australia it's the start of school, university, and work generally - particularly the building industry which seems to mostly shut down in January. Back to routine - the words that Coles have splashed over the cover of their February magazine, which is filled with suggestions for lunchboxes and quick meals for the busy working woman.

For me, who no longer works it's also the beginning of a year of book groups, and so I have been spending hours reading in the last few days - hence no blogs. Which makes me wonder whether that is why there are big gaps in my long ago years' posts. Maybe I was intensely reading back then as well. I always leave it to the last minute, because these days I would have forgotten what the books were about if I had read them earlier.

It's not just me and my book groups however. My Italian classes have begun again - as have all manner of clubs, classes, extra-curricular activities around the country. No, January is not the real beginning of the year. It's February.

Endings - over here holidays are over and done with. This must be a time when any business tourist related considers whether it was a good year or a bad one although the food services that serve the workers must be entering a more prosperous time. Lazy days that start late and don't involve the everyday pressures of the daily grind are over. It is indeed back to the routine. Summer is not over however. Technically it may be at the end of the month, but practically it is not.

Over there, it's the same with winter. They may be hoping for spring, but it's actually quite a long way away.

And so we hover in between:

"February is the uncertain month, neither black nor white but all shades between by turns. Nothing is sure." Gladys Hasty Carroll

It was those missing old posts that made me realise that foodwise February is a bit of a pressure month for me - a glut of peaches this year, and a large glut of plums - still to be finally dealt with. There is less time, because I have to read those books, go to my Italian class and arrange reunions with family and friends. But I really shouldn't complain. It might be hardish work but the end result is very satisfying.

Because I rely on The Guardian a lot, and also other northern hemisphere foodie newsletters, and things, there is a real disconnect in what foods they are talking about and what is seasonal in our shops here - currently it seems to be melons, stone fruits, grapes, avocadoes, tomatoes and zucchini here and cabbage, mushrooms and onions over there. So I thought I would check out my Nigel Slater KItchen Diaries III to see what he ate in February and I was a little surprised. I picked out four:

Aubergine 'cassoulet'. Hang on - aren't aubergines (eggplant to us) in season now? Or they should be anyway. They're surely a late summer vegetable. Cassoulet, however, is indeed a wintry dish - a slightly stodgy, comforting kind of thing although if you are having a summer holiday in the Languedoc you will be sure to find cassoulet on almost every restaurant menu. This one is a cheat though. It's not loaded with sausage, and rabbit, goose, duck or chicken but is vegetarian. And looks yummy.

Slow-roast ribs with honey, anise and creamed cauliflower. Now this one does look very wintry and cauliflower is definitely not a summer dish. However, that said, ribs of one kind or another often appear at barbecues - the current Coles Magazine has two recipes for pork spare ribs. It's also something that Nigel experiments with regularly and this is simply:

"the latest of the many rib recipes I have worked on over the years and the countless number I have eaten."

The presentation here is suitably warm but wintry for a British February, but place those ribs next to a salad and photograph it by a barbecue and it becomes a whole different thing. It's the cauliflower that makes it a winter dish really.

Chicken wings with barley - "a warming dish for a cold winter's night" says Nigel, and I guess the barley makes it so. Not that barley is seasonal - you buy it dried - but the mushroom that dominates the picture is too I guess. However, the rest of it could be a dinner for any time of the year.

What really grabbed me about this particular recipe, because it resonated with my recent feelings of pressure and failure too, were these words from his introduction to the recipe which he calls 'basting':

"A giant, velvet-gilled field mushroom the size of a small saucepan, sits quietly sizzling in a pan of oil and butter, and I am spooning the cooking juices over it, generously, tenderly, almost hypnotically as if it were a steak.

It is a perfect moment, peaceful and life-enhancing, after a chaotic day that has had me trying to do several things at once, none of them particularly well. I am determined to rescue the day. Sometimes making something can do that."

Alas today I am fasting and so there will be no such respite. But there is dessert. One of these A seriously lemon, lemon sorbet stands out as something you would not normally associate with a miserable British February. It's made with a bergamot lemon (or orange) and I guess the justification for including making it on a wintry day is that it reminds him of summer - although he doesn't say this.

The pièce de résistance however is this Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake, which looks seriously gorgeous and which I am going to make next time I have to make a cake.

So February - a difficult month perhaps. A time for readjustment. My sister turns 80 tomorrow, which is a big readjustment, although it actually isn't of course, because it's just another day. We can begin to look to March for relief - from the cold or the heat, or from the pressures of new things.

And then there's Valentine's day - not that that is a big deal in this household. However, this year I have organised a ladies lunch in Melbourne on Afloat Capri on the river. Although of course, there are pressures and worries about that - what day, what time, who can come, are the trains running or not ...? Silly to make mountains out of molehills. And besides:

"Without Valentine's Day, February would be... well, January." Jim Gaffigan

YEARS GONE BY

February 11

So what did Nigel have to offer for February 11? - Pasta with dill and bacon - alas for the fasting because I could have really enjoyed that. The New York Times had Sheet-pan fried rice with vegan 'XO' sauce - isn't Veganuary over now?